Enhancing the Methane Generation from Food Waste Anaerobic Digestion Mediated by Fluidic Oscillator Generated Microbubbles

作为一个社会，我们正在浪费大量的食物，全球每年的食物浪费估计有20亿吨。不断增长的人口和中产阶级的壮大只会加剧这个问题。使用适当的废物处理设施，不能重新用作动物饲料的废物得到缓解。其中一种策略是使用密闭容器，让微生物在无氧环境中将这些废物降解成沼气(主要是甲烷(CH4)+二氧化碳(CO2)和其他气体的混合物)和粪便，这一过程被称为厌氧消化(AD)。这一过程相对清洁，产生可用于发电的沼气，并减少由于甲烷在垃圾填埋场无控制地释放而产生的温室气体排放。我们建议的解决方案通过周期性地喷发二氧化碳微泡来增强这一过程，以便将甲烷产量提高110%。它还计划对微泡介导的矿物碳化释放的沼气进行甜化(分离二氧化碳)。通过现场整体工艺集成提高工艺效率是另一个目标，使该项目成为固有的可持续能源解决方案。

As a society, we are wasting a lot of food with global food wastage estimated at 2 billion tonnes p.a. Growing population and the growth of the middle class is only going to increase this problem. That which cannot be repurposed as animal feed is mitigated using appropriate waste treatment facilities. One of these strategies is to use an airtight container to let microbes degrade this waste into biogas(predominantly a mixture ofmethane(CH4)+CarbonDioxide(CO2) and other gases in minor amounts) and manure in an oxygen free environment in a process known as anaerobic digestion(AD). This process is relatively clean, generates biogas which can be used for energy generation and reduces the greenhouse gas emissions due to uncontrolled release of methane in the landfill.Our proposed solution enhances this process by periodic sparging of CO2 microbubbles in order to increase the CH4 yield by 110%. It is also planned to sweeten (separate CO2) the biogas released by mineral carbonation mediated by microbubbles. Increase of process efficiencies via total process integration at site is another objective making this project an inherently sustainable energy solution.